


Castaways’ Window

by Chancy_Lurking



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Gen, Kaiju (Pacific Rim), Love Confessions, M/M, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There are no words for the thoughts he has in that moment, because they are not his thoughts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Castaways’ Window

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [23emotions](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/23emotions) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Degrassé  
> adj. entranced and unsettled by the vastness of the universe, experienced in a jolt of recognition that the night sky is not just a wallpaper but a deeply foreign ocean whose currents are steadily carrying off all other castaways, who share our predicament but are already well out of earshot—worlds and stars who would’ve been lost entirely except for the scrap of light they were able to fling out into the dark, a message in a bottle that’s only just now washing up in the Earth’s atmosphere, an invitation to a party that already ended a million years ago.

The building in which Hermann and Newt are waiting out their quarantine is not exactly a cozy place.

It is made mostly of concrete and white tile, with long windowless hallways and doors they could not pass through without an escort. To the best of Hermann’s recollection, there is only one window to the outside and it is in a cafeteria a floor Newt has not been allowed to access just yet. And if Hermann is to have continued contact with Newt, he must be held under near identical conditions. At this point, he considers it a privilege to be allowed to go into the shower alone.

As such, though it is just after 2am and a few degrees below freezing outside, Hermann is pleased to be knocking on Newt’s bunk door.

There’s a minor scuffle before the door finally whooshes open, Newt half-dressed and looking frazzled. “What’s wrong?”

Hermann finds the genuine concern in Newt’s voice oddly touching. He must look unrested, but then again, they both do. It has been a long month, but thankfully, it is coming to a close. “Nothing,” he says, extending a key card to Newt. “We’re going outside.”

“What?” Newt says, blinking uncomprehendingly upon taking the badge.

“As of a half an hour ago, your quarantine has officially been lifted,” Hermann says pleasantly. He had not stayed awake expecting that particular announcement, but it was a better excuse than chronic insomnia. “They would like to keep you until more test results come in, but they have decided the total lock down was unfounded,” he nods down the hall vaguely before dropping his gaze with a smile. “They were going to wait until morning since it’s late and snowing out, but I thought you’d like to know-…” Looking away is a mistake. Newt screaming “Dude!” is all the warning Hermann gets before he’s hit with a full body hug that nearly sends them both to the ground.

Hermann can almost forgive him for the ache in his ribs when Newt pulls away, face brighter than it has been in a long time. He’s still ruffled and sleep deprived, but he looks so genuinely happy it steals Hermann’s breath for a moment.

“No, dude, you are completely right!! That is the exact kind of thing to wake up at 2 in the morning for,” Newt shouts. He’s practically buzzing in place for a moment before turning and diving under his bed. A flurry of clothes are suddenly flung around the room, “You are the best! You are the man! I’m so stoked.”

Hermann sniffs as chaos descends on the already unkempt room (how Newt manages to make a mess with so few amenities is beyond him), “They aren’t going to revoke the access in the middle of the night, Newton, please slow down.”

“No way, man. Breathing nothing but lab air for too long’ll drive you nuts,” Newt says, stumbling into his snow boots and shrugging on his jacket at the same time. “Holy shit, dude. How long has it been since they let me outside? A year? Two??”

Hermann sighs impatiently, “It has hardly been a _month_ , Newton.” And he would know precisely how long it has been because he has been conscious for the entirety of it. His tests were not nearly as extensive or invasive, having drifted only once – the _proper_ way, with a partner – and for a shorter time period that Newt had. Hermann looks down at where Newt is fighting into his outerwear, taking in the shaved half of his head where the scientists have hooked probes repeatedly over the last few weeks. His line of sight is disrupted when Newt tugs a hunting cap down to his ears.

“You sure?” Newt says, grinning up at him wildly. “I think _your_ wires are a little crossed,” he says and it’s a little self-deprecating, most likely something he overheard one of the doctors say. But the bitterness fades nearly instantaneously, a childlike glee spreading over Newt’s features. “It’s snowing out, I can tell,” he says, jumping up and rushing past Hermann into the hallway.

“You can tell because I _told_ you,” Hermann says, watching as Newt bounces in place, waiting impatiently at the airlock doors. “Don’t have an episode, they might keep you here just yet.”

“ _Here_ ,” Newt scoffs swiping his card through the reader. His excitement visibly elevates when it actually grants him access. “Here is _so_ yesterday, here is history…” he pauses in the middle of the next hall, turning back to Hermann questioningly. “Where is ‘here’?”

Hermann makes a face at him, “I don’t know where we are any more than you do.”

“What? They wouldn’t tell you?” Newt says and when Hermann does not reply, he turns away, spinning in a full circle as they walk. “Damn, didn’t know I was _that_ contagious.”

“Newton…” Hermann starts to say ‘ _let’s not have the You-Didn’t-Have-To-Stay conversation again’_ , but Newt is already swiping into the elevator.

“Maybe I can tell by the constellations,” Newt says reading the directory with astonishing speed before punching in the code for the ground floor. He’s not looking at Hermann now, but the buzzing excitement has not fled him. Hermann can accept that as enough.

“Perhaps,” Hermann mutters and they ride in silence.

The guards at the main doors are happy enough to ignore them, having already received the memo that Newt was safe to allow outdoors. Many of the days Newt had been awake and alert were spent arguing with anyone who would listen about letting him outside. He is easily made stir crazy and there is only so much fighting with Hermann to be done. Now that his ‘ _Immediate Probable Threat’_ status has been lifted, there will be nobody who wants to continue trying to keep him captive and/or entertained.

Newt moves quickly past them, lest they decide to change their minds at the last moment. Hermann at least pauses to nod to them, but looks up to see Newton practically running down the entrance tunnel that appears to lead into a forest.

“Newton, slow down!” Hermann calls. “You know I can’t move that quickly!”

Newt laughs, a bright and happy sound, “C’mon, Herms! You know I’ll wait for you forever.” The winter wind burns his face, a sensation he never thought he’d miss, but fills him with relief. The tears in his eyes are not just from the cold as he draws in a breath, snow and real pine filling his nose, not the fake shit they spray in the breakroom. _Outside._ He looks up only to frown slightly at the trees obstructing his view of the sky, “Huh.” He turns in a circle before grinning and darting off the trail.

“Newton!” Hermann shouts. “That is not-!”

“We’re not going far!” Newt calls back, jogging carefully ahead. “Just a little further!”

There are branches scraping his legs through his pajama bottoms and the sound of the leaves and occasional ice patch crunching beneath his feet is making his chest tight. It had not occurred to him, the lab gremlin that he was, how much he would miss _this._ He isn’t even a nature guy, but here he was, thrilled to death to have it slicing him up and stealing his breath. As he gets to the spot he had seen from the main road, the trees thin out abruptly and Newt finds himself standing in the center of a clearing.

A hundred feet wide at least, like the old American-Canadian border before it got trashed. Standing in the center of it, Newt turns to see it run to a pinpoint in the distance, nothing to obstruct his view of the night sky on the horizon.

He feels his mouth drop open and his breath shutter out, but cannot force himself to form any words. Something snaps inside him when he sees the sky, the stars floating out in the black sea of space.

There are no words for the thoughts he has in that moment, because they are not his thoughts.

The universe in all its glory, runs through him in that moment; four dimensional, incomprehensible and colossal, _inhabited_. He is reminded that the hole at the bottom of the ocean, the apocalypse that had tried to crawl out of it, came from _out there._ He had shared his mind with something that had seen more than the entirety of the human race would ever witness. And it is all here in him (the leftovers chattering in his ears), at the same time it is out there (floating in the nothingness between everything). He is a phone with no service, but charged up and full of old texts.

A hive, his mind is a _hive_ and he cannot hear or think, let alone _breathe_.

Newt feels the world shift beneath him and goes down like a sack of bricks, the sky streaking dizzily above his head. The stars that explode behind his eyes with the pain of striking the frozen ground blend eerily into the night sky and his heart nearly stalls in his chest.

He’s got a universe inside him and it’s pressing on his ribs.

“Newton!” Hermann shouts the second he sees Newt go down, alarm sparking bright in his chest. He is hurrying, as much as a man with a cane on slick ground can, a horrible nightmare of kaiju blue spilling out of Newt like blood making him numb with terror.

Some part of Newt hears his name, hears Hermann tearing through the shrubbery. That part of him wants to tell Hermann he’s ok. He can taste blood in his mouth, but his ears are roaring not ringing – he doesn’t have a concussion, he just can’t quite _breathe._ There’s too much air, there is not enough of it, because there’s too much _everything else._

Hermann’s face over his obstructs his view of the stars and the chittering in his head dulls back to almost nothing. He blinks and everything is blurry and he realizes his glasses are missing. “Herms…” he says, blurrily reaching out around himself.

“Christ all mighty, Newton,” Hermann says, reaching past Newt’s hands to grab his glasses. “Less than five minutes out and you’re already _seizing_ …”

“I’m ok…” Newt says, but his hands are shaking as he takes his glasses and tries to put them back on his face. He licks at the place where he bit his jaw, “S’ok, I’m fine…”

Hermann’s face is a flawless balance between irate and concerned. “I should say _not_ , you just–.” he tries to help Newt to sit up, but stops, startled, when Newt grabs him by the arm.

Newt blinks his face back into focus, staring up at him. “Hermann,” he says because he’s serious and needs Hermann to know it. “If I promise to help you up without mentioning it later, will you lay down with me?”

There is a moment of hesitation and that’s all Newt needs to know Hermann will concede. Hermann’s rebuttals are instant and forceful; a man of numbers with no grey areas. If he hesitates, it is usually only because he is making peace with his own defeat (or with whatever Newt is about to do). Though he doesn’t quite recline, Hermann gingerly lowers himself off his aching knees to sit at Newt’s side.

The night sky, the Earth’s vast window in all her glory is open to Newt again, and his heart starts to shake. He draws in a trembling breath, searching the stars for something he couldn’t name, but would bet was close to The End.

“Newton,” Hermann is using his quiet voice, the one Newton rarely hears. It is not the indulgent voice or the tone he uses when forcing patience. He’s mostly heard it when Hermann did not think he could hear him, while he lay semi-conscious after a test. ‘ _Of course, it would be you_ ,’ Hermann said one time. ‘ _I’m staying, alright?_ ’ he’d said another time. Mostly he just said, ‘ _Come on, Newton, look lively.’_ This time he takes in the tears and terror in Newt’s eyes and says, “What _happened?_ ”

“It’s all so…” Newt searches for a proper term, but his mind has reverted to pure feeling. Even waving his arm up vaguely at the sky makes him feel like a bug struggling on a pin board, “So _big._ ”

Hermann follows his gaze, before narrowing his eyes and turning back in confusion. “Space?”

“There are… Herms, there are _things_ out there,” Newt says emphatically, sounding a little more like his normal self. “Like, the fact that we are on a rock floating around a star is not- it’s not _unique_ , man! There’s other things out there- or,” his face goes pale, “There _were_ things out there, what the _fuck_.” He turns to look up at Hermann, “The nearest galaxy, Andromeda, you know how close it is?”

“Just under 800 kiloparsecs away, I believe,” Hermann answers, beginning to understand the exact nature of this little incident.

“Exactly!” Newt shouts, eyes now bright with panic instead of joy. “That’s _2 million_ lightyears, dude! We can look up and see the stars and-…” His steam seems to leave him. “And they’re all already dead. We missed the party and the funeral, too, it’s all over and… We _missed_ it.”

“Well,” Hermann begins, the dejected tone in Newt’s voice making him want to comfort him. He looks up at the sky, “We haven’t missed _all_ of it, Newton. We haven’t even _witnessed_ some of it yet.”

“But something’s witnessed _us_ ,” Newt insists. “The kaiju found us, they _hunted us down_ from across space and time.” He sounds far away and small when he says, “They know us, out of everything out there, they saw _us_ and we could not see them. I know…” He isn’t sure what he knows anymore, but that dangling statement makes Hermann tense up beside him.

“Newton, the kaiju… Do they-?” Hermann shifts towards him cautiously, “Can they communicate with you?” He knows this horse has been beaten to a pulp, but wonders vaguely if anyone bothered to ask directly instead of just checking an MRI scan. Hermann’s own memory of the hive is patchy and blurred; more than anything, he remembers the incessant feeling of a presence at the base of his skull, making his hair stand on end for days. Though it has sense faded for him, he has no idea what double dipping would have done to him and is, not for the first or last time, concerned for Newt.

Newt blinks at him blandly, then turns away, “Don’t go shrink mode on me, I told everyone already. It’s just echoes not communication.” He rubbed the same spot on his head where Hermann had felt the presence, “Scratches in my record, not new downloads.” He sounds terse, as he fiddles with the cuff of his jacket, “It’s the ones I can’t hear that bother me more.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Kaiju… that doesn’t even cover it,” Newt sits up, but it makes him dizzy and he lays back down, pointing up accusingly. “There are things out there, it’s not just… it’s so,” he laughs in awe and hysteria, staring up at the stars. “It’s _big_ but… it’s still so goddamn _crowded_.” His head lolls over to look at Hermann, “We might be the only ones in the whole infinite multiverse that are not getting the group texts.”

Hermann latches onto a familiar argument, he has to. This is getting beyond the scope of what he knows how to deal with. “You know very well the infinite multiverse theory is not even a _theory_ on a good day.”

Newt rises to the bait, but throws a wrench in Hermann’s thought, “You say that when we watched monsters crawl through an interdimensional wormhole at the bottom of the ocean.”

Hermann flushes, “That’s not-.”

“Hermann, I just _felt_ it.” Newt says, cutting him off.

“…Felt the multiverse?”

“I…” He starts to say he felt existence itself, but catches the words just before they breech his lips, “I felt _everything_. It was fucking _scary_.” He looks a little uncomfortable suddenly, his words coming out in a sheepish mumble. “It’s so stupid,” he shakes his head. “Out of all the things I felt… It’s tacky, you know?”

“Feeling fear is not ‘tacky’,” Hermann says sternly. “Newton, you helped stop the _apocalypse_ , you let the world’s biggest threat into your head, _twice_.” He touches Newt’s shoulder, only then realizing his fingers are practically numb, “If anyone has earned the right to be _frightened_ of what can see us-…”

“That wasn’t what I was afraid of,” Newt says stiffly, then winces. “Or it _is_ , but that wasn’t what I was saying was tacky, it’s…” He swallows and sighs loudly, “Saying love is light in the darkness or whatever, _that’s_ tacky. But…” He still looks deeply embarrassed, but the frightful pallor of his cheeks offsets the effect, “I think it is.”

Hermann has lost the ability to follow the point of this conversation, enough so that he feels forced to admit it, “I don’t understand where you’re going, Newton.”

Newt sits fighting with himself for a moment, jaw working as he thinks. Whatever he thinks appears to hurt him. “Somebody out there,” he starts softly, before turning to Hermann with alarmed eyes. “Somewhere out there, somebody knows how much I love you,” he says and his face breaks into something desperate when Hermann freezes, eyes going wide.

The whole world feels as if it has zeroed down to the cold space around him and Newt, the edges of everything else blurring to nothingness. The narrowing of focus down to the shimmering of Newt’s eyes and the painful sincerity of his face leaves him breathless. Newt looks gutted by his own words, he has destroyed himself to voice them. The abject despair a perfect contrast to the sunny excitement that had radiated off Newt when they first met, before the people they were in the letters were revealed to be pipedreams. There has never been such a pure moment of feeling between them since that day and Hermann has the horrifying realization that there may never be again.

It feels as if they are meeting for the first and last time in this moment.

They both feel as though they are about to lose something.

Looking down abruptly, when Newt next speaks his voice is shaking, “I feel like they can _see_ it, like a beacon in the dark and every other stupid analogy.” He waves his hand as if knocking them all away, “The fact that I love you… it makes you visible, to _something_ , I don’t know what, but it does.” He looks back over at Hermann, and Hermann’s heart breaks. He looks traumatized and exhausted when he whispers, “And _that_ is terrifying.”

Hermann gapes at him, “Newton…”

Newt tugs his hat down around his ears, hiding like a shy child in a noisy room, “Agh, I could’ve been a science teacher, you know? I could’ve been a professor, students would’ve loved me. They would’ve loved you, too,” he says as he sits up. His head is still pounding, but the world stays solid beneath him. The sky is too much to look at right now and so his Hermann so he draws up his knees to hide his face in them. “The hard-ass genius in the tweed suits. They’d’ve painted racing flames on your cane, you would’ve been _famous_ …” his breath catches, and a thought seems to occur to him. “And I think I would’ve loved you anyway. But you wouldn’t be…” He doesn’t have to voice the ending, there’s too many. Here. In this mess. With me. In danger, standing on a target, trying to drag me away.

Hermann is unused to such a flux of emotion swirling in him; it doesn’t feel like butterflies – fluttering and shy – it feels _combustible_. Newt has the universe in his mind and he just unleashed it all on Hermann. He’s got star dust, volatile and shifting and _beautiful_ clouds of creation swirling in his chest. He doesn’t yet know what it will become, yet he already feels _luminous_.

“Goodness gracious,” he huffs out a laugh, shaking his head up at the sky. “You’ve given me four times and I can’t even get out my one.”

“What?” Newt says, voice suspicious. (He was a bullied child, Hermann recalls, painfully.)

“Newt, listen to me,” Hermann says, leaning close to Newt. “You are correct. There are innumerable other castaways floating along in the universe, many of them, perhaps, containing sentient life. And maybe some of them _are_ all trying to figure us out or maybe they think they’re alone out there and are shouting for anyone who can hear them.” He shakes his head, “But they are all well out of earshot.” He hesitates a moment, before saying carefully, “You and I both know better than anyone. The kaiju are unique. Both in their ability to contact and their hostility towards us.” At least he prays – and he _very_ rarely prays – that they are. “The rest are all, surely, seeing us as we see them. A speck of light in the distance, a message from years long since faded.” He has to smile slightly when he says, “They’re lucky if they’re looking at dinosaurs, Newton.”

And Newt does chuckle slightly at that, which makes Hermann’s throat feel less tight.

“And while… I am deeply,” Hermann shuts his eyes. “Incredibly, _profoundly_ moved that you believe your love for me- goodness,” he gets flustered even without looking directly at the subject of his distress. “Your love for me is bright enough to be seen from lightyears away, I must point out, if that _is_ the case and love can be broadcast out into space,” he motions about vaguely. “Nobody will be able to see it for at least another millennia.” His hand fidgets about awkwardly before settling on the crook of Newt’s neck. He hopes to be comforting though he feels like he’s latching on to the only solid point available to him. He’s numb but it is still suspiciously like grabbing a live wire. “I am just as safe here with you, galactically speaking anyway, as I would be if I had been tenured to some science department.”

And though Newt does seem somewhat placated by that, his laugh is still a little skittish, “Wow, ‘galactically speaking’, huh?” He pulls his face out of his knees and rubs at his eyes, “Still worried I’m going to blow you up one day?”

“Yes,” Hermann says completely seriously and without missing a beat. “Though I imagine the risk would not diminish if we had been tenured to the same unfortunate science department.” And though Newt does laugh, nodding his head gleefully, Hermann does not let it rest there. He steels himself against the embarrassment trying to choke him, clearing his throat. “However, I also find,” sighing and rolling his eyes is a reflex he does not bother to resist at this point, “In spite of _all_ of my _best_ judgement… That I would still choose to stay with you.” The emotion making his voice thick frustrated him, but he plowed on as ever, “Even if I were not safe ‘galactically speaking’.” And then when Newt just stares at him, wide eyed and shocked, Hermann nudges him, “I drifted with a kaiju for you, Dr. Geiszler, don’t take that lightly.”

“No, no!” Newt exclaims lurching towards him, then sitting back, self-aware. “I mean, I didn’t- I don’t! I don’t, I know that was a big risk, like a huge, fucking _colossal_ risk especially for _you_ and you still did it. You still _trusted_ me and it landed you here in the-,” he’s getting away from himself now, the color of constant intensity coming back to his face as he flails about. “In _quarantine_ in the ass crack of nowhere and you haven’t even been allowed to- holy _shit._ Do they even have chalk boards here? What have you even been _doing_? They better have-…” Newt cuts off when he looks over, finally _sees_ what he’s looking at. The genuine smile tugging at Hermann’s lips makes his heart speed up but his mind slow down. He is a little stunned by the sudden stillness in his head. The point of his rant rises to his mouth without having to unwind the whole ball of yarn for once. He feels helpless as he says, “ _Thank you_ , Hermann.”

Though the spreading warmth in Hermann’s chest _could_ be the beginnings of hypothermia, he chooses to believe it’s happiness. Newt has not reminded him of sunlight in a long time and he finds it immensely pleasurable to be reminded of it again. It is also extremely pleasing to be thanked with such heart-stopping earnestness from someone who lived like every day was April fool’s day. “You are most welcome,” Hermann smiles, both to show his sincerity and his amusement. “But you can thank me properly by getting me off this ground, Newton.”

“Oh, _shit_ , yeah, of course,” Newt stumbles a bit as he gets to his feet. He gets a bit of a head rush, but quickly turns around and hauls Hermann up as well. There’s a bit of stiffness in Hermann’s leg now that causes him to stagger, but Newt holds fast as they both get their footing. “We should get inside before we freeze. Wouldn’t that suck? Help save the goddamn world, go head to head – fucking literally! – with an alien species and then dying from the weather.”

Though he agrees, Hermann doesn’t let go when Newt goes to pull his hands away, fingers instinctively clenching around Newt’s. He isn’t quite sure why until he starts speaking.

“Newt,” He says, looking down and gathering his thoughts. “The universe is immense, _that_ no sane person can argue.” Newt’s eyes are unusually serious when he looks up to catch his gaze; he’s listening with everything he’s got and that urges Hermann on. “But the Earth itself is small, _extremely_ so. Here, we can touch and be touched and…,” he doesn’t miss the way Newt draws in a breath at that, but he forges on. “There is no void so deep or person so unique as to ever be completely alone. Everything here is… _close_.” He waffles uncertainly, before reaching to hold Newt’s arm, meeting his gaze head on, “We are close in a way that the vastness of space will never be able to disrupt.”

Newt feels himself getting choked up as soon as Hermann finishes speaking. He takes a step forward, putting him well within Hermann’s usually well-defined personal bubble. The fact that Hermann neither moves back nor pushes him away makes his chest ache. His voice is watery when he chokes out, “Infinitely close, huh?”

“The limit does not exist, I suppose.” Hermann muses, stroking Newt’s arm invitingly. “And yet to prove that, we continue to approach it.”

The silence that follows is one Hermann recognizes as anticipatory, the two of them searching each other’s face for a sign of the next move. It is almost always – in Hermann’s experience, anyway – a goodbye or a kiss, often a combination of the two. Though he can’t say he has ever thought to find Newt standing across from him in such a moment, he thinks he knows which option it will be, certainly he knows which one he hopes for it to be. Newt’s lack of impulse control has never failed before, and so Hermann stands, waiting for that impulse to take shape in the physical sense.

He’s surprised when Newt speaks.

“Is this,” Newt’s eyebrow quirks nervously but Hermann does not miss the humor in his eyes. “Is this a roundabout way of saying I’m not alone on the love boat? ‘cause- _ow!_ ” He jerks back when Hermann pinches him. “Hey!” he shouts but then freezes, stunned, when Hermann tugs him down and presses a kiss to the center of his forehead.

“You are insufferable,” Hermann grouses, turning away flushed as Newt touches his forehead and grins at him. “I’m going back inside!”

“That was a yes, wasn’t it?” Newt calls, jogging after him like a puppy. He practically starts jumping when he catches Hermann’s hand again and isn’t batted away, “Oh man, that was a yes!”

When Newt looks up at the sky, straight up with his head tipped back, there is still a pull in his stomach. For many years later, he will see the night sky unintentionally, unpreparedly and his vision will gray and his ears will buzz. Some nights in his dreams, he will fall into infinite nothingness and knock things off his night stand grappling for something to hold on to. In some of these moments he will find a hand to hold on to and whispers – human, here, real life whispers – calling him back to this tiny shared space, this island among the stars. He will stop and make himself remember that if even touching another being – literally or spiritually – is a miracle, then touching someone you love is even more improbable. And yet he gets to live it every day. He will look up into Hermann’s eyes – behold the universe itself in them – and believe, just long enough to get his breath back, that this is all there is to understand about the whole of everything. This gaze meeting his and these hands wrapped around his own; the way he weeps when Hermann voices that he feels the same.

Everything is still so very big, horrifyingly so, but on that night in the woods, with Hermann’s hand in his, Newt feels as if the cosmos fold in on themselves, small enough to be beheld.

The beginning and end of the universe summed up by the immeasurably small space between their hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully those space analogies aren’t too heavy handed. I took astronomy this semester and saw a lot of pretty pictures that looked like emotions.
> 
> Good, bad, ugly, I’d like to know what you thought! Thank you for reading!
> 
> Edit: Grammatical fixes 31/XII/15.


End file.
